Dear Prospective Au Pair,
We are an experienced host family located in New York, about 1.5 hours by train ride to the North of New York City. We had a great experience with our last au pair and would like to continue the experience. We are both working parents. Host dad usually travels all week for work Monday to Thursday, and host mom works from home office. We have two boys 7.5 and 3 years. Older one is in school from 8:30AM to 3:30PM and little one is in daycare from 10:00AM to 5:00PM on weekdays. Older child has after school activities in the evening almost everyday to which host mom will take him while you must take care of the little one. Your job will not require you to drive almost at all, our previous au pair didn’t drive. On weekends we usually have plans with friends, playdates, planned trips etc to which you will be welcome to join, but since its your break time, you can choose not to. Host dad’s father (76years) also lives in the house with us.
We would like someone to not just take care of basic stuff such as feeding and bathing the kids, but to be able to actively enrich them by doing arts and crafts, teach them another language, baking with them etc. A big bonus if you play a musical instrument such as piano or guitar and can teach them. Both the boys are very high energy so you will have to have high energy too and run around with them, participate in pretend play with them. You must be friendly and yet firm with the kids. You will almost always have at least one parent in the house, so if kids are giving you a hard time, which is rare, you can ask the parent for help.
We are US citizens now, but originally we are from India. The kids were born in the US though. We are non vegetarian but we don’t mind if you are vegetarian or vegan. We do prefer an au pair without any food allergies. We don’t have pets. We are by birth Hindus so we celebrate some Hindu festivals but we are not very religious. However, we don’t mind if you are and would like to practice yours. Our previous au pair did participate with us on one of the festivals and had a good time dressing up in Indian attire, again you don’t have to if you don’t want to. Usually these would be on weekends which you will mostly be off and free to do what you want.
We expect our au pair to be sunny, calm, pleasant, respectful, punctual, dependable, hygienic, and flexible. We will take care of you like family. We took our previous au pair to two international vacations, during one of which she even got to meet her parents. Our previous au pair was able to travel significantly within the US on her own, and I did accommodate her vacation time so she could fulfill her own dreams.

We usually don’t have a night-time curfew, though we would like to be informed if you are going to be late. Also, I would discourage social media during work hours unless it’s a family urgent matter or kids want to watch Youtube kids on your phone. During work hours we want the kids to be your priority.
-Sue (prospective host mom)

We are looking for a fun but responsible au pair to take care of our two boys 3years and 7years old. You have to play with them, bond with them like an older sister and become a part of he family. We will also respect your interest to have your own free time, go visiting different places in America during your stay.

You will have a split schedule with help needed in the morning and evening. Au pair hours during a typical week will be as follows:
M-F: 7:30AM-10:00AM and 3:30PM-9PM = 8Hrs*5= 40Hrs
Sat: 7:30AM-12:20PM = 5Hrs
During morning, your job would be getting the boys up, ready with breakfast and put older boy on school bus at 8:15AM. Then get the younger one ready with school lunch packed by 10AM.
In the afternoon-evening, your job would be to get the older kid off the bus at 3:30PM, make him afternoon snack and getting him ready for his after-school activities. Then once younger kid comes home from daycare at around 5PM, start feeding him dinner, changing him, giving him a bath etc. Once older kid comes back, start feeding him dinner etc. If you can put the little one to sleep, that will be a bonus. Then you will also have to load the dishwasher and run it before retiring to bed. You can eat breakfast/lunch/dinner with the kids or the rest of the family or in the privacy of your own room if you prefer that. We all have hectic work/activity schedules so we end up often eating while working at different times as convenient.